The only place in this small parish requiring the least notice is
Cadgwith or Cagewith, a moderately sized fishing cove, and heretofore
celebrated for its lucrative trade, while the rights of the duchy were
practically maintained against the admission of all coercive laws,
relative either to the Customs or to the Excise.
The principal part of this parish anciently belonged to the
distinguished family of Carminow.
Mr. Lysons says, that on the partition of their property between
heiresses, the lands in Ruan Minor were allotted to Trevarthian, whose
heiress brought them to the Reskymers, who had them in 1620; they were
afterwards in the Bellots, of whom the property was purchased by
Robinson of Nanceloe, and alienated from them to an adventurer called
Fonnereau, who having obtained a seat in Parliament, procured a
lucrative bargain for constructing lighthouses on the Lizard Point.
Having ultimately become a bankrupt, or died insolvent, every thing
that he had purchased was again sold, and the lands in this parish
were bought by the late Sir Christopher Hawkins, about the year 1780,
and they now belong, under a special devise, to his brother’s second
son.
The advowson of the rectory was reserved in the sale by Robinson.
Mr. Lysons records one of those singular customs in ecclesiastical
matters which arose in former times out of the capricious fancies of
individuals making gifts for the salvation of their souls. It seems
that the rector of this parish sends a horse into a certain field in
the adjoining parish of Landewednack, whenever a harvest of corn is
taken in it, for the purpose of bearing home as many sheaves as the
horse can carry on his back.
Ruan Minor measures 628 statute acres.
Annual value of the Real Property, as £. _s._ _d._
returned to Parliament in 1815 538 0 0
Poor Rate in 1831 93 7 0
Population, { in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831,
{ 317 | 274 | 293 | 269
giving a decrease of 15 per cent. in 30 years.
Present Rector, the Rev. R. T. St. Aubyn, presented by P. V.
Robinson, esq. in 1814.